A Paperless Global Information Environment?

Problems

Sadly there are a myriad of problems, which mean the utopian paperless, global, information environment will never be realised. Below are some of the key problems drawn from my essay.

Technology is often seen as a tool to speed things up and something that bypasses human error. However computers can only be as smart as their programmers and can only be as useful as the user allows. New technology is always looked at as something magical, but has many hidden flaws. The first issue with technology is the price, which leads to problems with keeping the technology, specifically the hardware up to date and accessible. Mary Thomas, (2000) says in her essay Redefining Library Space, No matter how advanced an online text may be, as a CD-ROM, a World Wide Web version, or a directly accessible data file, that text is only as useful as the technology available to receive it allows. Without good equipment, users may not get an exact copy at each terminal. How many libraries can provide state-of-the-art computers for all their readers? As technology quickly becomes obsolete, changing to being a digital information provider is not made up of one up-front cost, but continual costs, as you need to update equipment regularly. Even the technology for converting paper documents to digital expensive and costly, even with many companies promising to do this quickly and in a cost-effective way, for example The Digital Ark Buying new technology is expensive, and so is educating staff and users in how to use them.

Although books are seen as fragile, because of technology always changing they actually have a longer life than their matching digital copies. Peter Brophy, (2000) points out that, in the traditional, print-based library, each item has to be used serially, (i.e. one user at a time…heavily used items wear out; the cost of stocking little-used items is very high; and there are high costs associated with handling physical objects. Technology is vulnerable, not just to change, but to a variety of potential disasters, including computer hackers, crashes and viruses. Digital files are also easily corrupted and changed easily. Books can also be ruined by things like water damage and pages being ripped out.

Digital files are easily altered and damaged. With books you can often see the changes in front of you,but you often have no way of knowing if a electronic document has been changed. Similarly much digital information, (specifically information found on the web) has no one to verify the author or if the information presented is accurate of factual, you can go on the Internet and say anything and pretend to be anyone. Stuart Jeffries (2011) addresses this and talks about some of the different types of misinformation on the Internet including fake Twitter feeds, phoney Facebook accounts, staged internet suicides, and those Wikipedia pages undetectably mined with lies. Today's digital technology offers us even more chances than Disneyland ever could to revel in hyper-real – or perhaps that should read cyberreal – fakery.

Another problem is the platform in which digital resources are viewed. If you do not have the correct software or correct hardware, certain resources may not be accessible to you, for example different E-books will only work on some E-readers, like the Kindle. Robert Slater’s (2010) article points out that also because of Digital Rights Management, (DRM), not all e-resources may be viewable on e-readers all the time, no matter how good they are. Publishers know that providing e-books costs them much less, but they still want to make lots of money. This means that there are lots of issues with copyright and DRM, so many publishers will want to keep maximum control over their publications. Having such strict restrictions, Slater, 2010 on e-resources also means that they are less useable, because they have rules which stop the changing on content, (so no taking notes in the margins), and also rules to how long and how you can access them.

Having different platforms and different access to the technology limits those that can access the information, meaning it is not global. Although many people do own a plethora of digital equipment, including laptops, digital cameras, scanners and kindles, there are still many people who don’t even have basic access to a computer, including over 2million children, in the UK, with no home access to the internet, (Shepherd, 2010).

It is not just technology that leaves people out, but a range of factors that mean all information can never truly be provided globally. This new paperless library would mainly benefit educated, wealthy, English speaking westerners. Most academic and web-based information is produced or translated into English and although we have more and more software to translate online material, this in itself is costly and unlikely to ever be 100% accurate. People with little technological experience would also be left out, which often includes the old and the poor. Looking at the western world there are huge amounts of people who would be left out, but in the undeveloped parts, including Africa, (Dawson, 1995) pp.52) it would be any even higher amount. However the National Library of the Netherlands is aiming to digitize, (National library of the Netherlands, 2010) every Dutch publication ever, but this will have restrictions, including language and because of copyright laws there will not be free access to all these digital copies.

Orphaned books, (books with no traceable rights-holder or out-of copyright) were often freely available on the web, through audio and digital files, but even this has recently been challenged in the US, (Anon-A, 2011, pp. 6) . HahiTrust is a partnership of more than 50 research libraries and its mission is to improve access to the record of human knowledge. They are currently being sued by a number of organisations and individuals that will stall their efforts to digitize these books and will likely put off others interested in similar ventures.

Even libraries are charging to use e-books, including the Nottinghamshire Library authority, (Anon-A, 2011, pp14) charging for the loan of e-books and even the British Museum, charging a subscription to view their books through it’s new Ipad App, ‘Bibliolabs, (Anon-B, 2011, pp.75), which is cheap, but again only available to be people who can afford an Ipad or similar. Libraries are paying more and more for their e-journals, however these are not available to everyone. As these often involve a subscription, and not everyone can pay for or belong to an institution that subscribes to them. There is some debate, (Economist, 2005) as to why publishers can make a profit from producing work, usually journal articles and other research, created by government funded researchers and institutions. Researchers have the opportunity to share their work freely through the Internet, but many still prefer to get their research published, as it seems to elevate their work.

In The Myth of the Paperless Office, (Aborg and Billing, 2001, pp.76), there are a number of reasons shown as to why people prefer the printed version over E-Resources, including the flexibility of navigation, ease of viewing more than one document at once, (for cross-referencing), the ability to annotate work and the ease of simultaneously reading and writing. Slater, (2010, pp.35) notes that reading on a screen is not as effective as reading a traditional print book, and that you generally read slower. In the article “Health Benefits of the Paperless Office.’ (Aborg and Billing, 2003) point out that there are a myriad of health problems that come out of sitting at a computer, staring at a screen all day, not least headaches and joint and muscle problems. Maybe the biggest obstacle for the global, paperless information environment is the lack of desire to move in that direction. Hard copies of books often feel ‘special’; people enjoy flicking through books, the smell of books, and having them fill their walls. Malcolm Gladwell, (2002) points out, the more practical point, that when it comes to performing certain kinds of cognitive tasks, paper has many advantages over computers. If there is no desire for a libraries to digitize, then they simply won’t.